He goes on and defines the garden path sentence also in this way: “a type of sentence that traps the reader in a processing failure and requires an act of reanalysis to recuperate its actual structure and meaning” (Jahn 169). In his short story theory with reference to garden paths Manfred Jahn starts with the famous garden path sentence – “a type of sentence that causes unexpected processing difficulty” (Jahn 167). The conclusion will comprise the main points and some suggestions for further discussion. Afterwards, James Thurber’s narrative style and his sense of humour will be presented. Moreover, I will briefly try to find similarities between James Thurber and Walter Mitty. First of all, I will describe Mitty’s development in the course of his daydreams and then I will take a look on the real Walter Mitty. In the next chapter I will concentrate on the story’s two narrative levels. In addition, I will name some hints where the reader realises Walter Mitty’s various daydream episodes. What are the reasons for Walter Mitty’s escapist daydreams and how is Mitty’s character presented in the story?įirstly, I will describe the garden path phenomenon and applied to “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” I will analyse the beginning of the short story. Can “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” generally be regarded as a garden path story? What is of particular interest is whether the reader is misled by Thurber’s narrative technique especially at the beginning of the story.
Manfred Jahn analysed this short story with respect to his garden path short story theory. The expression “to lead someone up the garden path” means “to deliberately deceive someone”. Walter Mitty became an archetypal American figure.īy reason of the structure of the short story and “Thurber’s own narrative style – economical, lightly ironic, and wonderfully expressive” (Holmes 218) it seems that this short story can be seen as a garden path story.
Today the name “Walter Mitty” also exists in the English language and is used for people who are daydreaming and not paying attention to the real world. Thurber tells the story of a Walter Mitty, a man who lives in a dream world to escape from the routines and humiliations which he suffers in everyday life. In the following pages I want to focus on James Thurber’s famous short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” which was first published in 1939 in the magazine The New Yorker.
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